Category: Iraqi refugees

Blog on Iraqi refugees: more questions then answers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written 201 posts on the Iraqi refugee situation and still feel like we are not getting the truth, or anything near the accurate story of the supposed “crisis” with Iraqi refugees.   I came across this blog the other day reporting on a first hand account of a visit to the UNHCR office in Jordan.  Now I have even more questions.

First, we have been inundated by the media, especially the Associated Press, telling us how bad the Bush Administration is in admitting refugees from Jordan and Syria.  However, according to this UN office in Jordan, up until sometime in 2007 the UNHCR had not registered very many refugees (the UN is the gatekeeper to refugee resettlement).   As a matter of fact, the blogger here, says that when he entered the UN office he had expected to see a long line of refugees and saw none.

In 2007 UNHCR set a submission target of 7500 Iraqis, they met this target and more with 8062 Iraqis registered and processed. A cumulative total of 4,663 persons have been submitted to these 16 countries.

So, now my question is, if the refugee crisis is so great why had the UN been dragging its feet?

The blogger then reports that he asked the UN employee about the problem of Muslims who have converted to Christianity feeling threatened by revealing that information to Jordanian Muslim officials.  Why haven’t we heard about this before?   And, we have been told over and over again that information was not collected on the religious affiliation of refugees.

I asked about the some of the concerns of the people I have interviewed. One was concerning Muslims who had secretly converted to Christianity. That they were afraid to tell the caseworkers of their conversions, afraid of reprisals as it is illegal in the Kingdom of Jordan for a Muslim to convert. Ziad assured me that anyone giving information about their case had to be forthright and need not fear any reprisals.

The UN employee then tells the blogger that single men are not given priority in resettlement, but that doesn’t fit what we are hearing on this end.   We have reported on many single Iraqi men getting into the US.  So, what is the truth?  Just the other day I reported on the Iraqi refugee who exposed himself and a few weeks back I wrote about two questionable Iraqi young men in the Bay area interviewed on a radio program (the volag representative even said they were resettling single men in California).

I also asked Ziad who was given resettlement priority. He replied that priority was given to; single females, the elderly, children separated from their parents or relatives, and family reunification.

Last, the blogger relates how Jordan is trying to push Iraqi refugees out of that country by imposing fines on those who stay too long.  According to the blogger this has pushed “hundreds of thousands” to Syria.  What the heck?  How come we haven’t heard about this?

Second option: if they choose to leave the fine would be waved. *This may account for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees who have left Jordan for Syria.

Where is Matthew Lee and all the rest of the biased and lazy mainstream media?

Grover Norquist: the can of worms is open, fully open

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Some of you are asking who is Grover Norquist.  If you don’t know, good for you.  He is your typical power grabbing, Bush/Rove buddy, Washington insider, supposed defender of your tax dollars, and much (much) more.   He has for many years been the head of Americans for Tax Reform (maybe you know the name now). 

And…. he may be a trojan horse for Islamic supremacism in the US.   Before you think I’ve gone completely off the deep end, see how the can of worms opened over the last few days first at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air where Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch made the following comment to an article praising Norquist’s tax work.  Read all of the comments that followed Spencer’s, including Debbie Schlussel’s.  Here is Spencer’s:

Grover Norquist has been responsible, more than any other individual, for the infiltration of Islamic supremacists into the highest levels of the U.S. government. See here the seminal expose by Frank Gaffney of the immense damage Norquist has done.

The continuing general ignorance among conservatives of the political aspects of Islam, and of the efforts by Islamic jihadists to impose political Islam, piece by piece, over the West, can largely be attributed to the baneful influence of Norquist. He has energetically aided and abetted the branding by CAIR and others of critics of Islamic supremacism and of those who tell the truth about this Islamic political and societal agenda as “bigots” — such that frank discussion of the full nature and magnitude of this issue has been generally unwelcome even in conservative gatherings and on conservative media outlets.

Then read the Jihad Watch post on the issue here (with comments).   Note that Grover Norquist is married to a Muslim woman, Samah Norquist.

It is all coming together.  We wrote about Norquist for the first time last summer because he was promoting the Kennedy bill to bring more Iraqi refugees to the US.  See our posts here, here and here.

Frankly, I didn’t understand it.  For the life of me I didn’t see how a conservative crusader for lower taxes could be actively promoting bringing more refugees to the US—and more Muslims.   I am very discouraged, disgusted, you name it.  

Please read all the links I’ve provided and digest this information.   For me, it is further confirmation that our country is in serious trouble.  It confirms what we all know, that Washington and the power brokers (left and right) are not putting America first.   So, it is more important than ever that all of you get involved in whatever way your talents lead you to halt the creep of Islamic supremacism into each minute fiber of our society. 

This is a big deal—Spencer’s statement above—he was very brave to comment with such straightforward honesty.    Please all of you be as brave.  The worst they can do right now is call you a bigot and racist.  If they get more power, what they will do will be worse, much worse.

Iraqi refugee gets caught exposing himself to undercover cop

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I have said before, I am starting to feel like Refugee Resettlement Watch is the refugee crime blog.  Today Debbie Schlussel (Hat tip:  Blue Ridge Forum) has a post in which she reports that an Iraqi refugee, Waleed Wadie, age 29, has been arrested for exposing himself on the internet to what he thought was an underaged girl.  She was a cop.  Waleed could be deported. 

But wait, didn’t he just get here?  Isn’t he one of the vaunted Iraqi refugees, the ones who have helped America and now fear for their lives?  Isn’t that what the NGO’s say?   Isn’t he one of those Iraqi refugees who we have been assured over and over again by Homeland Security has been thoroughly screened?   Where are his volag handlers?  Did they give him the computer along with his food stamps and subsidized apartment?

Granted there are good Iraqi refugees but be assured we are letting some real scumbags into the country and you aren’t going to hear about it anywhere in the mainstream media or the leftwing blogs or any blogs or other media sources because it is not the politically correct thing to do.

Read the rest of what Debbie has to say here.  Her take is a little differant than ours, but her quandary is understandable.  The refugee story the public is being told by the Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) through their media mouth pieces doesn’t fit the other news from Iraq.    You might ask, since the surge is working, why is there a refugee crisis?   Because it is in the NGO’s interest to create the aura of a crisis.  By doing so they can continue to attack the Bush Administration on the war as well as drum up more paying clients for their refugee resettlement industry.  It’s called a ‘twofer!’

As Judy pointed out this morning when she wrote about the Washington Post and its lazy reporting, the Iraqi refugee issue is NOT what the NGO’s  want you to believe.  Things are improving in Iraq, refugees are returning, the government wants their productive people back, and all the people we are bringing to a neighborhood near you are not deserving of a life in America—take Waleed here as exhibit no.1.

Go to our Iraqi refugee category to see all of our 198 posts on the subject.

A kook and a bully introduce a bill to bring more Iraqis to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and John Dingell (D-MI) re-introduced a bill this past week to increase by a minimum of 20,000 the number of Iraqi refugees we will bring to the US each year.  Now it’s not clear to me if this is 20,000 over the State Department’s 12,000 and over the additional 5000 Congress (Sen. Ted Kennedy) shoved down the Administration’s throat attached to the Defense Authorization bill earlier in the year.

Here is a portion of Hastings press release in which he thanks the groups who are supporting this effort.  NGO’s would get increased funding to do this work if the bill passes.

(Washington, D.C.) Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) and Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, lauded prominent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and religious groups for their support of the Iraqi Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement, and Security Act (H.R. 6496). The following organizations have endorsed this legislation: The Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict (CIVIC), Church World Service, Congregation of Divine Providence of San Antonio, Education for Peace in Iraq (EPIC), International Rescue Committee, the Leadership Conference on Women Religious, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Mercy Center, Mercy Corps, NETWORK, Open Society Policy Center, Pax Christi USA: National Catholic Peace Movement, the Presbyterian Church (USA), Refugees International, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Sisters of St. Joseph NW PA, and Save the Children.

Last night, Hastings and Dingell reintroduced H.R.6496, which addresses the impending humanitarian crisis and potential security break-down as a result of the mass influx of Iraqi refugees into neighboring countries, and the growing internally displaced population in Iraq, by increasing directed accountable assistance to these populations and their host countries as well as facilitating the resettlement of Iraqis at risk.

Read the bill (HR 6496) here (you will need to re-enter the bill number).   I couldn’t find any mention of how we could help refugees already returning to an increasingly stable Iraq.   I am such a cynic, but there is nothing in it for these groups if Iraqis go home.

And, as for the comment above that the internally displaced population is growing, where are they getting that information?

Refugees International: Bring the Iraqi Palestinians here now!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Refugees International an NGO (Non-governmental organization) that lobbies to bring more refugees to America is taking up the cause of Iraqi Palestinians caught at the border of Iraq.   The reason these Iraqi Palestinians were fleeing Iraq, according to a Brookings Institution report, is that they were favored by Saddam Hussein and he encouraged their residence in Iraq.  When Saddam met his fate, they fled their homes in an attempt to escape irate Iraqis who had been persecuted by Saddam’s regime.  In other words, it was payback, so don’t let them make you feel guilty, they were not fleeing American military action.

Recently a plan has developed to send 3000 of these Palestinian Iraqi refugees to Sudan—a decision which has really ticked off Refugees International and their ilk.   Bring them here they say: 

Approximately 34,000 stateless Palestinians have lived in Iraq since 2003. Since the beginning of U.S. military operations in Iraq, many suffered persecution at the hands of the Iraqi government and other armed groups. More than 3,000 fled to the Syrian-Iraqi border, where they live in makeshift tents in the desert with limited access to basic services. Syria refuses to allow them to enter its territory and only a few have been resettled, mostly to Sweden and Chile. Failure to act on the part of the U.S. government and other resettlement countries led UNHCR to sign a tripartite agreement with the PLO and the Government of Sudan that called for the relocation of this population to a neighborhood of Khartoum.

“We must not allow this vulnerable population to be used as pawns in a greater political game,” said Younes. “The U.S. government should acknowledge the vulnerability of this stateless population and resettle them here. It is appalling that Sudan, a country infamous for its violations of international humanitarian law, has stepped in to protect these people when the U.S. would not.”

To resettle this vulnerable population expeditiously, Refugees International urged the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to create a special category to process refugee applications. Any process should be held without prejudice to the Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland.

Note that the PLO has been involved in this.  I would like to know why rich Arab countries like Saudi Arabia can’t begin to resettle Muslim refugees into their Muslim country.  Or why won’t Muslim Jordan and Syria let them in?

If we take any (we probably will) lets make sure, as Judy suggested the other day, that they go to cities like Berkeley, CA!  What the heck, put all 34,000 in a city that loves the Palestinian cause.  Maybe the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society could get the government contract to do the resettling.